


I touched the fire (and I felt the pain and I let it in)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: this could be good (love is patient, love is kind) [13]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Samurai
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, And my favorite sixth of all time, Antonio Shiba is my favorite samurai ranger, Character Study, Gay Male Character, M/M, Symbolism, he is my golden knight, in my samurai series, oh well, tied with Cam, tied with Lauren, what is with all the fire/light symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 04:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18380768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Seeing Jayden again is like having an old scar open up. This one’s a burn, obviously, from Antonio holding his hand to close to a fire and having his skin stripped open as a result.Antonio can’t resist the fire, though. He’s never been able to see a problem and have the self-control to step back.(Antonio fell in love with a boy that was guaranteed to burn him. Even when they were both five and Jayden still smiled, Antonio knew that Jayden Shiba was going to destroy him. And he let it happen.)He and Jayden dance around each other, never once mentioning their connection, and the team burns around them.Mike and Kevin realize they’re Soulmates and Mia's is dead and Emily won’t stop talking about hers and through all of this, Jayden sits. He smolders. He implodes silently, never saying a word about the connection between them.And Antonio's a reflection of that implosion, because he's always ever been the reflection, in love with a boy who can’t love him back.





	I touched the fire (and I felt the pain and I let it in)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tsukino_Akume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsukino_Akume/gifts).



> Title is from "I Touched The Fire" by Casey Breves, which IS Antonio's song.
> 
> This is a bit shorter than most character studies in this series, but I think I like it.

_There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights._

**― Bram Stoker**

 

Jayden's smile was the most beautiful thing Antonio had ever seen. When Jayden wrote on his arm and the ink had shown up on Antonio's, it hadn't been some world defining moment. It had just been confirmation of the friendship they already had, an acknowledgement that Antonio's worled really was meant to revolve around this boy with the bright smile.

Then Antonio and his padre had had to leave Panorama City, and Jayden had handed him Octo.

"I promise you I'll come back," Antonio said, and Jayden had smiled that tragic smile of his.

His Padre told him that Jayden and he could never be together, that he was only setting his heart up to get broken.

And Antonio, brave, stupid child that he was, had told his father that the only way his heart could get broken was if Jayden’s broke first.

Antonio thinks about that a lot, you know. When he’s fishing, when he’s closing his eyes to sleep, when he’s training, when he’s looking at the small doodles he’s hidden in the crooks of his joints- he thinks about how his heart has been broken plenty of times. He thinks about how every time his heart has shattered, it's been because of that blond boy with the sad smile and the red t-shirt.

He always comes back around to the fact that his element is light, si, but that you have to have a spark to start a light ablaze.

And that’s Jayden- his spark.

-

Kids stare at his Soulmarks, and he can practically hear them wondering about why only one color ever seems to show up on his skin.

He never gives them an explanation, though. They don't deserve one.

-

Antonio spends the decade and a half between age five and age twenty training. He goes to school, learns to fish, joins the coding club- and he trains.

He has to train. He has to become a Samurai Ranger, to fulfill a promise his childhood self made to a child who handed him a weapon as a gift.

When he’ll meet Kevin years later, Kevin will tell him that he isn’t a true Samurai Ranger, and Antonio will know that to be a lie. He, like any Samurai, knows that training is the most important thing in life. He knows that failure isn’t an option.

Antonio understands Jayden’s duty. He doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the fact that his Soulmate refuses to write to him, but he at least somewhat gets the reasoning behind it.

Antonio became a Samurai Ranger for a million reasons, half selfish, half not. He became a Ranger because he knew Jayden would need the help, because he knew that a team of people without Soulmates, depriving themselves if happiness, would probably fall on their own.

But most of all, he becomes a Ranger because he _promised_ , and he knows the power of an oath.

 

-

Seeing Jayden again is like having an old scar open up. This one’s a burn, obviously, from Antonio holding his hand to close to a fire and having his skin stripped open as a result.

Antonio can’t resist the fire, though. He’s never been able to see a problem and have the self-control to step back.

(Antonio fell in love with a boy that was guaranteed to burn him. Even when they were both five and Jayden still smiled, Antonio knew that Jayden Shiba was going to destroy him. And he let it happen.)

He and Jayden dance around each other, never once mentioning their connection, and the team burns around them.

Mike and Kevin realize they’re Soulmates and Mia's is dead and Emily won’t stop talking about hers and through all of this, Jayden sits. He smolders. He implodes silently, never saying a word about the connection between them.

And Antonio's a reflection of that implosion, because he's always ever been the reflection, in love with a boy who can’t love him back.

-

(When Jayden looks at Antonio, he sees the sun. Jayden thinks himself the moon, the reflection.

Neither of them is entirely wrong.)

-

Jayden and Antonio talk, and they agree to be friends. Antonio wants so much more, but he understands Jayden needs time to process things.

It _is_ a step, though- an absolutely wonderful step that actually gives Antonio hope.

They get back to the team, and for a moment, things seem to right themselves a little. Emily is less indignant about Soulmate matters, Mike and Kevin slide back into their usual best friend actions, and Mia just keeps cooking rather questionable meals.

-

They ask him to work on the black box, and it only takes one look at Jayden for Antonio to agree to take on a task that might just burn him right up.

Antonio knows that he would do anything for Jayden, and sometimes he hates it. He hates the fact that the little broken boy he made a promise to fifteen years ago can still get him to agree to anything, that Jayden only has to ask a question and Antonio will jump to help him.

But he knows that Jayden knows that the Rangers would fall without him, and he doesn’t hate it as much.

Maybe that makes Antonio a bad person, knowing that he is taking some measure of pleasure from his Soulmate's distress. Maybe that makes him selfish and 

But Antonio's still here, still helping, still keeping that damn promise, and that has to mean something.

-

The first time Antonio kisses Jayden, Antonio still has rope burns around his neck and wrists. Jayden’s eyes are still wide and terrified, almost as if he can’t believe that Antonio is actually here, and Antonio can’t blame him. Getting captured by a Nighlok is pretty nervewracking, even if he’d never had any doubt that the Samurai Rangers would save him.

It’s just a brief kiss on the cheek. Nothing special, no spark- Jayden’s skin is warm like a normal human’s, not like fire incarnate.

But his gaze- it’s the most scorching Antonio has ever felt. “I thought I’d lost you,” Jayden says, his fingers ghosting over the raw skin around Antonio's wrists, uncertain and concerned.

"You'll never lose me," Antonio promises, and he's being completely honest. 

-

Mike and Kevin's elements are forest and water. Water allows the forest to grow, while roots anchor the sides of the river to give water a place to grow. They are mutually beneficial, quietly supporting each other.

Antonio and Jayden are the fire and the light, the life-giving warmth and the shine to live by, the scorching flame and the devastating radiation. Antonio's blade flashes as he fights and Jayden’s fire smasher blazes and together they make a fantastic team.

Antonio thinks they're slowly making their way to something. Nothing's really going to happen until after Xandred is defeated, of course, but their previous teamwork fighting Nighlok has definitely improved and Antonio really thinks that they're only going to get better.

-

Lauren arrives and Antonio finally fully understands. He understands Jayden’s lack of self-preservation despite his role as Shiba Heir, understands why he is so self-destructive. He understands why Jayden played with him as a child, why Jayden smiled and didn't push him away at first.

So Jayden leaves and Antonio _does not accept_. He is a Ranger for himself, for the world, but most importantly (most selfishly), for Jayden.

Jayden is this team's leader, its field commander. Lauren is a Red Ranger, si, and an important part of the team, but she is not Jayden. She is not Antonio's. She is a fire, but she is not his spark.

(And here’s the thing- he knows that she can be a good Ranger, he’s sure of it. But at the end of the day, Antonio’s selfish where Jayden is not. He's not about to give up on his Soulmate, his best friend, just because he's supposed to.)

Antonio finds Jayden, as he always does, because he is the light that follows the fire and Jayden is everything he wants.

Antonio is not a coward. He is selfish, he recognizes that, but he's not afraid.

"I came for you," he says, and Jayden's brow furrows.

"Why?" he asks, as if there's even been a question for Antonio.

"You're mine," Antonio says with a grin that carries a decade and a half of rejection and dedication and stubbornness. "I'll always come for you."

Jayden's eyes are wide, but his smile is soft and fond in a way that Antonio hasn't gotten to see it since they were kids. He reaches out a hand to Antonio, who takes it, as he's always taken it. 

"We're gonna go fight Xandred," Jayden says, "But afterwards..."

Antonio nods, getting the words that Jayden doesn't know how to say, that he has spent a lifetime denying himself. "We'll deal with it all then."

Jayden smiles, and he doesn't kiss him, but it somehow means more than it did when he kissed Antonio after that rescue.

And Antonio doesn't think that it was possible for Jayden to surprise him, not when he knows him so well, but then Jayden does it anyway. "I love you," Jayden says, and the world doesn't burn.

“I love you too,” Antonio says, and Jayden is the spark and he is the light, and the warmth in Antonio's chest is not scorching bonfire but rather the fireplace of a home, a warmth that welcomes rather than hurts.


End file.
